I've worked in rocket manufacturing long enough to know getting to the moon a handful of times isn't actually that big an accomplishment. Only having 2 serious failures is impressive compared to the automotive industry though. "Modern technology" hasn't really advanced us a ton on any useful dimension other than guidance computers being a lot less unreliable, but even that can be and was briefly done entirely by hand as long as you have enough math people to figure out the orbital maneuvers. We're seeing rocket engine designs finally discontinued this year that were literally in service on missiles before the Cold War.